Center for American Progress

Teacher Compensation in Charter and Private Schools
Press Advisory

Teacher Compensation in Charter and Private Schools

A new paper by Public Impact on compensation practices and potential lessons for public schools

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, February 6, 2007, policy leaders and practiced educators will convene at the Center for American Progress to address  the many open questions about how to use teacher compensation most effectively to draw and keep high-quality teachers. Panelists will consider a new paper by Public Impact authors that provides a snapshot of compensation practices in several charter and private schools and an analysis of potential lessons for traditional public schools.

Featured Participants:
Bryan C. Hassel,
Co-Director of Public Impact
Julie Kowal, Consultant Public Impact
Emily Lawson, Founder and Executive Director of D.C. Preparatory Academy
Nancy Van Meter, Deputy Director, American Federation of Teachers

Moderator:

Cynthia G. Brown, Director of Education Policy, Center for American Progress

Snapshots and Lessons
February 6, 2007, 9:00am10:30am
Breakfast served at 8:30 a.m.

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, DC 20005
Map & Directions

Nearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center

RSVP for this Event

Biographies

Bryan C. Hassel is Co-Director of Public Impact. Bryan consults nationally on an array of education reform issues, including teacher quality, chronically low-performing schools, and school choice, and district reform. He is the author of Better Pay for Better Teaching: Making Teacher Compensation Pay Off in the Age of Accountability for the Progressive Policy Institute 21st Century Schools Project. He is currently co-writing a forthcoming paper on teacher pay policy reform. In addition to numerous articles, monographs, and how-to guides for practitioners, he is the co-author of Picky Parent Guide: Choose Your Child’s School with Confidence and author of The Charter School Challenge: Avoiding the Pitfalls, Fulfilling the Promise and co-editor of Learning from School Choice, published by the Brookings Institution Press in 1999 and 1998. Dr. Hassel received his doctorate in public policy from Harvard University and his master’s in politics from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

Julie Kowal is a consultant with Public Impact, a national education policy and management consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, N.C. Julie has conducted extensive education policy and management research, including analysis of cross-industry compensation practices and case studies of district and state efforts to attract and retain high-quality teachers in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas. She previously served in AmeriCorps and as the assistant director of an education program in Washington, D.C., where she designed and coordinated an after-school writing curriculum in D.C. public schools. Julie earned her law degree with honors from the University of North Carolina.

Emily Lawson is the Founder and Executive Director of D.C. Preparatory Academy, a charter school serving middle school students in Washington, D.C. Prior to starting D.C. Prep, Ms. Lawson was a Vice President of Operations for Victory Schools, a national school management organization. She also helped to start the Academy of the Pacific Rim charter school in Boston and served as the Director of its academic summer program. Her business career includes two years at the private equity firm of New Mountain Capital and three years with The Boston Consulting Group. Ms. Lawson holds a B.A. in History and Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which she attended as a Morehead Scholar. She also has a M.P.A. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Nancy Van Meter is Deputy Director of the American Federation of Teachers. She joined the AFT in 1994 and has been in the President’s Office since 2001. Her work encompasses a range of policy and research issues, including vouchers; charter schools; private management of public schools; supplemental educational services and privatization of education and public services. She has co-written several studies on student achievement in schools operated by private management companies; student achievement in charter schools and articles on private management of public schools. In addition to research and policy analysis, her work involves extensive strategic and technical assistance to AFT affiliates around the country. Nancy has more than 20 years’ experience in labor and community organizing. She is a proud graduate of public schools and received a degree from Princeton University in political science.

Cynthia G. Brown is Director of Education Policy at the Center for American Progress. She has also served as Director of the Renewing our Schools, Securing our Future National Task Force on Public Education, a joint initiative of the Center and the Institute for America’s Future. Cindy has spent more than 35 years working in a variety of professional positions addressing high-quality, equitable public education. Prior to joining the Center for American Progress, she was an independent education consultant who advised and wrote for local and state school systems, education associations, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and a corporation. From 1986 to 2001, Brown served as director of the Resource Center on Educational Equity of the Council of Chief State School Officers. She was appointed by President Carter as the first assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education (1980). Prior to that position, she served as principal deputy of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare’s (HEW) Office for Civil Rights. Subsequent to this government service, she was co-director of the nonprofit Equality Center. Before the Carter Administration, she worked for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law, the Children’s Defense Fund, and began her career in the HEW Office for Civil Rights as an investigator. Brown has a master’s in Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a B.A. from Oberlin College. She serves as chair of the American Youth Policy Forum Board of Directors and on the Boards of Directors of the Hyde Leadership Public Charter School and the National Association for Teen Fitness and Exercise.